Code style guide

Iris follows fairly standard conventions with regard to code. The most obvious is the PEP 8 standard for Python. While we do not obey every PEP 8 rule, in general, they are good practice. Use the PEP 8 inspector in your IDE or similar to find problems.

Some of our standards include:

• PEP 8 for Python files
  • Whitespace - spaces and line returns
  • Comment formatting - single-line and multiline
  • Variable, function, and class naming
  • Single quotes for function arguments
  • Import statements
    • Order
    • Avoid wildcards when possible
    • Delete when unused
• Comments
  • Use hash comments when documenting internal-only functions
  • Use triple-quote comments when documenting external functions, intended to be part of the API
• Python file names
  • Lowercase
  • Underscores in place of spaces
  • Contain no other alphanumeric characters (aside from file extension)
• Image file names
  • Similar to Python files, with additional rules for PNGs
• JavaScript, bash, and other file types
  • TBD

Other conventions:

• Code files are terminated with a line return
• Comments are full sentences that begin with a capitalized word and end with a period
• Error messages are also full sentences, as above
• URLs must include protocol
• Proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation are enforced